New Canberra Capitals assistant coach Simon Pritchard will work for free and live at the University of Canberra student accommodation as he works towards becoming a WNBL head coach.

Pritchard is Capitals' first full-time assistant in four years, a move coach Carrie Graf hopes will help "take the program to greater heights" as they aim to break a three-season finals drought.

Pritchard owns a sheet metal manufacturing company, BCI Industries, in Adelaide but he will effectively work for nothing, sponsoring his relocation to Canberra to pursue his coaching passion.

The former Adelaide Lightning assistant will ease the heavy work load on Graf and juggle his company duties from Canberra.

"I've been working for such a long time and I'm lucky that I can log on to my computer and monitor it from Canberra," he said.

"The next step is to see a professional program, take what I can from it and hopefully start a program of my own.

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"I want to take what I can out of Graffy, I want to beg, borrow and steal. I want to learn from her and then work with some outstanding athletes here in Canberra.

"My goal, and if I do a really good job, we'll have some [Capitals] athletes going to the Rio Olympic Games."

Graf hasn't had a full-time assistant since Chris Lucas left to become Townsville's head coach four years ago.

The Capitals started pre-season training this week and are planning to play the first two weeks without star recruit Lauren Jackson.

Pritchard will take charge as the "video analyst guru" and individual sessions with players throughout the week.

He will occasionally return to Adelaide to visit family, but will spend most of his time living on campus at the university and helping improve players.

"Simon is basically doing this as a gift for us. He's in a situation with his business where he can do it and we'll fly him in and out of Adelaide so he can visit family," Graf said.

"We'll get a full-time coach for honorarium; that's a credit to him. He's got aspirations to coach as a profession so we're fortunate to have someone like him who sees our program as a stepping stone to that.

"We basically get someone full-time for part-time money. I can't do it solo and I get to work with a great coach; that's exciting for me."

The Capitals have all but finalised their squad, but will consider adding one more player if they can finalise a deal and third-party sponsorship.

Jackson had hip surgery last week and will miss at least the first two rounds of the season.

The Capitals are in the rare position of having no players or coaches involved in the Australian Opals' world championship campaign.

It's the first time in recent history the team has not been affected by Australian duties, with Jackson ruled out because of injury and Abby Bishop withdrawing to take care of niece, Zala.

Former Opals coach Graf has been absent from WNBL pre-season training in the past because of Australian duties.